In existing medical claim submission processes, a medical service provider, such as a doctor, physician, or surgeon, submits a batch of medical claims to a medical plan provider under which at least some of the medical service provider's patients are covered. The medical service provider sends the batch of medical claims either on paper or on a mass media device such as a computer disk or tape. If the medical claims are submitted on paper, the medical plan provider manually enters data from the batch of medical claims into the medical plan provider's computer system. If the medical claims are submitted electronically, the medical plan provider loads the batch of electronic medical claims into the computer system. Next, each individual medical claim in the batch of claims is reviewed manually by a human claims processor. In reviewing each claim, the claims processor manually prices the claim and manually determines the patient's benefits. The claims processor often uses external software products to validate and process complicated claims processing checks. The pricing of the claim and the determination of the patient's benefits may occasionally be performed automatically. After one or two months, the medical plan provider sends a remittance advice to the patient and sends a check to the medical service provider for the medical service provider's medical claim submitted in the batch of medical claims. However, a significant number of the submitted medical claims must be reprocessed by the medical service provider due to errors occurring during the manual data entry process, the manual claims pricing process, and/or the manual benefit determination process.
Another problem with the present medical claims processing systems occurs in the area of predetermination or pre-approval. Many complex medical procedures require pre-approval in which coverage for a benefit is determined before the medical procedure is performed. As an example, pre-approval is often required for amalgams or porcelain filings in the field of dentistry. To obtain the pre-approval, the dentist fills out and mails a pre-approval request to the medical plan provider. The medical plan provider enters data from the request into the medical plan provider's computer system, and if the request is approved, the medical plan provider sends back to the dentist a medical claim form that indicates the medical service or services that may be paid for by the medical plan. This lengthy pre-approval process often takes several weeks. Therefore, this pre-approval process is time consuming and is neither patient-oriented nor medical service provider-oriented.
After receiving the pre-approval, the dentist performs the medical procedure, and then the dentist checks off the completed medical procedure on the medical claim form and mails the medical claim form back to the medical plan provider. Upon receiving the medical claim form, the medical plan provider enters the data from the medical claim form into the medical plan provider's computer system. In this manual system, the data for a single medical procedure is recorded four times-twice by the dentist and twice by the medical plan provider. Accordingly, the administrative overhead attendant to this present system is both costly and time consuming.